Joining Empowered Childbirth was one of the best things I’ve done during this pregnancy.  Finally, I met some women who were not only doing things naturally like I was, but for whom I was mainstream in comparison!  Wonderful!

Digging through EC’s links page (yippie…more to read!), I came across Laurie Morgan’s site, Pleasurable Childbirth.  Pleasurable?  Now, we’re talking!  I like that idea…chances are, I’m only doing this one time, so I’d like to have it be the best experience it can be.  In Laurie’s e-book, which I printed out to read, I was stunned to actually find someone put into words just what I’d thought when I first learned I was pregnant…can’t I just DO this myself?  You mean…people really DO have babies on their own?  How cool.  Of course, by this point, I’ve paid for midwifery services, and I’m still glad.  I started out so uneducated about birth, that what I’ve learned from Merrie and the emotional support I’ve gained from her have been invaluable to me.  For crying out loud, I bawled at my first appointment with her about the circumstances surrounding this baby!  (again, another story…)  I don’t regret the care I’ve had so far.  For me, it’s made sense, and it’s given me confidence that I’m fine and that my gut feel — that this baby is VERY healthy – is likely right on target. 

To that point, right now, she has a bout of the hiccups…ah, joy.  I hope the fact that  I’m feeling the hiccups down low means that she’s in a nice vertex position. 

Reading Laurie’s e-book brought many thoughts, feelings, and hesitations to the surface for me.
In the beginning, I’d asked my cousin to act as “coach” for me.  You have to have a coach, right?  In the time up to reading this book, I’d started to feel somewhat uneasy about this, but couldn’t put my finger on quite why.  In exploring my own feelings, I realized that I didn’t want her to act as coach for me.  Sharing a birth with someone is such an incredibly intimate act, and I’d want that someone to be a person with whom I have a unique relationship.  I care for her deeply, but she’s not my partner in life, nor am I hers.  She has a wonderful relationship now, and that’s where her focus is, and rightfully so.  When it came down to it, I really wasn’t sure I wanted anyone there with me for this.

My eyes also opened to much of what I’d assumed was part and parcel of the birth process that’s really unnecessary.  I don’t want internal checks.  I don’t want anyone rupturing my “bag of waters” for me…the baby will do that on her own, thanks.  I don’t want a timeclock running for when I must birth by.  I’ve started to talk about some of this with Merrie…well, I’ve at least ensured she knows I’m reading a great deal about unassisted childbirth (UC).

In continuing learning more, I searched for yahoo groups specifically about UC, and came across the CBirthStories list, where birth stories from a UC group (CBirth) are posted for read only — the owner is the only one who posts, forwarding the birth stories verbatim.  Woo-hoo!  Six hundred-some-odd more stories I can read!  I started reading, and found a very realistic mix of stories where women had planned a UC.  In most cases, the UC was successful, and the results were just stunningly beautiful to me…so intimate, so personal, so natural.  In some cases, issues happened, and guess what?  The families dealt with those issues, and in some cases, made the hard call to transfer to a hospital.  Even then, it was THEIR decision.

As much of a control-my-own-circumstances person as I can be in other areas of my life, a UC seems to make sense to me.  I recently joined CBirth, and after my two-week probation, posted an introduction.  While I enjoy reading this list, I still get this feeling of religiousness, cultishness, etc…like it’s not okay that I’m not totally prepared to commit to UC yet…that makes me evil, wrong, and unenlightened.  Geesh.  Does that mean I’m not supposed to try to become more comfortable with this?  How else can I learn but to ask questions and read responses?  It seriously reminds me of the churchy/religious sorts of people who expect that you’re just supposed to blindly accept that their doctrine is right, without any discussion whatsoever.  Just as I find the right-wing-extreme-Christianity a huge turnoff, this attitude bothers me in the birth community as well.  I’m trying to look past it, and to gain/learn what I can.

The culture of people fixated on childbirth is an interesting mix (both on EC and CBirth).  It seems to be a nearly proportional mix of uber-Christians (off the grid, right to the point of libertarianism) and more alternative sorts (new-agey, liberal, hippie-ish).  What a trip.  I’m learning tons, but don’t see this as something that I’ll continue with once I’m past my own birth.  Unlike most of the women on these lists, I don’t anticipate having 4, 5, 6 children.  I’ll have this one, and likely not have any more — or adopt an older child if I bring a second child into my life.

Things that amuse me…and maybe bother me just a bit…

On both of these lists, people’s signature lines seem almost like boasts of oneupmanship, listing children not as people in their own right, but as accomplishments defined by how they were born.  Joey 3/00 - c/s; Amy 8/02 - mwhb; Nathan 4/04 my UC baby!  Does this make Joey any less of an accomplishment than Nathan?  Was Amy a mistake when the woman was still misguided?  Is Nathan superior since he was done “the right way?”  While I want the absolute best birth for my child I can give her, I don’t want how she’s born to define HER for the rest of her life.  She’s an individual, strong, caring, beautiful (well, I believe so, anyway) whether I birth her at home alone, at home with a midwife, or in the hospital with many interventions. 

The other series of “taglines” I see consistently in people’s signature lines… “home-birthed, slinged, exclusively breast-fed, un-circumsized, non-diapered, unvaxxed…”  etc, etc, etc.  It’s like a freakin’ (sigh…trying to remember to cut down on cursing) race or something.  The peer pressure in the groups almost reminds me of high school…there are a set of actions you should take (or not take) in order to genuinely be “cool.”  Blech.  Again, I’m trying to learn as much as I can, and ignore the rest.

All of this…pregnancy, preparing for birth, etc…has been an incredible experience for me personally.  May 2003 started an exploration of self, and (with a counselor) a guided healing of so much lie-based thinking I was unconsciously allowing to control my life and thoughts.  By no means am I perfect — IMO, there will always be more to learn — but there’s no way I could have handled a pregnancy a year ago.  While the emotional meltdown I felt last week was tough, it only lasted 30 minutes to an hour, and I knew that I would be okay.

The coolest part of all of this has been discovering that I’m perfectly fine/comfortable to figure out who I am and what I want, independently of what others are doing or pushing.  Learning the concept of personal boundaries — really internalizing that concept — has been the most powerful discovery.  Having grown up forever trying to figure out what to do to please people, then doing that, I feel so much more at peace with myself now.  Trying to please everyone in every situation is exactly where my first major depression (1997) came from!  I remember hearing the song, “Everything to Everyone,” and both crying and getting angry.  It hit too close to home.

So, what do I plan to do?  Hmmm…for birth, I’m coming closer to the idea of UCing, and I’m more and more certain that I will birth on my own, then call Merrie afterward to do the measuring, weighing, well-infant check, etc.  But that can wait…baby and I can have quiet time with each other until then.  I expect to use a sling for most of my ventures out, and only use a stroller for running (jogger with big tires).  As women have done for ages, the baby will simply be part of me.  Where I go, she will go too.

The next big thing I need to figure out is healthcare for the baby.  Do I need to purchase an (expensive) insurance plan?  Find a naturopath?  Find a pediatrician who is more of a holistic doctor?  Find a GP who’s a holistic doc — so baby and I both see the same person?  Ugh…guess I need to figure that part out.  Baby could arrive as soon as six weeks from now…and my well-baby checks (prepaid with my midwife) are only for the first six weeks of her life.

Whatever happens, I’m reasonably content with how my own character is developing.  The next big thing is still to find my passion…a passion with which I can earn a living.

When I first learned of this pregnancy, my initial reaction was disbelief, bordering on panic.  Within a couple minutes of doing the “but-I-don’t-have-medical-insurance” dance, I thought to myself, “Do I HAVE to have a doctor? Haven’t women done this for all time, even before doctors were ever involved?”  Unfortunately, that thought slipped away from my mind very quickly, as I went about trying to figure out how I was going to get prenatal care (”a hospital won’t take you without prenatal care,” I was warned).

Along the way, my father suggested that I call a friend of his’ wife — she’d recently had her seventh (!) child with a midwife.  One of the phone calls I’d made before was to a CNM, and I *thought* I knew what that was about…it was just as expensive as seeing an OB (about $2600, not counting hospital costs, which run $3-5k for a NORMAL birth).  Just the same, to humor dad, I called Patricia, and she gave me a glowing reference to a woman who wasn’t her midwife but was “one I saw once, and if I birth again, I will use her.”

I called Merrie, and was dumbfounded to realize that this would mean a HOMEbirth.  Really?  Um…okay.  The costs were amazingly reasonable — I was stunned at the difference.  $1400…with discounts if I paid by 20 or 28 weeks gestation.  Wow.  My gut reaction to her was very positive, so I decided to go for it, but that meant that I was committing to a “natural” birth — no drugs. 

The whole pregnancy/childbirth thing was such an unknown to me…remember, I hadn’t planned for this baby.  So, what did I do?  I reacted the way I take on most new situations/topics in my world.  I started to read and research like crazy.

Like most people, the first book I bought was “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”  Honestly, as a newbie, it gave me a reasonable start for…well…what to expect.  Just the same, I found its tone to be annoying somehow, and couldn’t quite put a finger on why.  My friend Melissa suggested that I should get a copy of “Birthing from Within,” and while I found it interesting, I probably found 5-10 pages of the content to really speak to me.  The rest…well, I had no desire/urge to do art projects, and no partner for all of this.  (My thoughts and feelings about walkng through this single would/will make up another very long post.)

I continued to read pretty much anything I could get my hands on, especially related to “natural” childbirth.  I needed to know what was coming up for me! On top of that, somewhere along the way, the idea that I really would have to get this kid OUT of me started to just feel more real, and thus, scary since I was uninformed.  In this search for more information, I came upon my new “favorite” reading material: birth stories.

Of course, like most pregnant women, I’ve watched the Discovery Health channel shows and the like with interest.  But, disturbingly, all of these shows seemed to focus on problematic pregnancies.  If nothing else, I’ve been incredibly healthy through this pregnancy…other than a short bout with anemia/low protein which I could quickly correct with diet.  The emergency-type births shown in these shows just didn’t fit, and since what I’m planning (birth at home) is so different, they really didn’t help me to get a good idea of what to expect.  One of the early birth stories I stumbled onto finally clicked with me…it was a woman somewhere in Colorado, and she’d had a midwife-attended birth up at her mountain cabin with her daughter and husband present. (see story here)  What a shame I’m in a condo!  I loved the image of being outside, in the middle of nature, holding on to a Ponderosa pine.  Even better, this story was just so real — it wasn’t without concern, but the issue (stuck shoulders in this case) was handled calmly, not as an occassion for panic.  From here forward, I started searching out birth stories — reading others’ experiences became my preparation for my own birth.

I also started searching for more yahoo groups.  The pregnancy list I’ve been a member of has been good, but I’d often felt that I just didn’t fit in…I was doing something so different from nearly everyone else on the list, and I just felt…out of place.  I didn’t have OB appointments to talk about (I can’t believe I used to feel BAD about that?).  I didn’t have a dh/bf for support…and to complain about.  I found Holistic Birth & Parenting, and requested to join.  It took weeks before I finally was in, and once I was in, I was disappointed at how slow this list was.  I didn’t have huge amounts to contribute, and really wanted to read others’ posts at first..but there weren’t any posts to read!  However, early on, someone mentioned Empowered Childbirth, but added the caveat that they weren’t accepting new members because they were so busy.  What the hell…I’d try anyway.  Much to my surprise, I got in even faster than I had to HBP!

(continued in another post)

Yesterday was an appointment with Merrie, and I was glad to report that once I increased my protein and added an iron supplement, I haven’t been quite so exhausted.  My ankles/feet are still puffed up, but nowhere nearly as bad as they were a few weeks ago.

Weight…I’ve gained another 5 pounds!  180.4

My blood pressure…low as usual: 104/51

Baby’s heartrate: 130s-140s  She was pretty quiet through all of it; seems I keep setting appointments for while she’s sleeping.

I’m not too concerned about the new five pounds (effectively 2lbs/week since my last visit 2-1/2 weeks ago), because I’ve REALLY felt my belly grow, and baby growing as well.  She’s allowed as much weight as she wants/needs for growth.

Then again, I’m sick of the few pieces of maternity clothing I have left that fit…and purchasing anything else at this late date just seems silly.

Postpartum depression has been one of my biggest fears about pregnancy, as I’ve experienced major depression before. Over the past few days, though, I’ve felt the dark clouds gathering. Today, they came to a head, and I found myself sitting in the bathtub (my comfort zone), sobbing as I wrote out pages of poisonous thoughts and feelings…fears, feelings of doubt, all the “stuff” that comes with a depressive episode. Not pretty.

My self-indulgent sobbing was interrupted by UPS delivering my new “microhood.” (Funny how irrelevant it seems when you’re in that state…why should I bother with a new appliance?) He also brought inside an amazon.com delivery, which included a book by William Glasser. I’ve read several of Glasser’s books over the past few months, starting with “Choice Theory,” which had a title that just grabbed me. This one, about marriage, takes the same concepts and puts them into a different context. I sat back and read, calming myself down, as I remembered that even though what I was feeling was/is VERY real, it was (at least, in part) a choice. My circumstances are what they are, and my initial reactions are pretty well programmed; but, my continued response is a decision. Will I cry, withdraw, and depress what I’m feeling? Or will I move on?

While I was thinking about all of this, Baby (31 weeks today) started bumping around, nudging me, pushing so that I could watch my belly move. It’s probably projection, but I swear, it was as if SHE was comforting me. I’ve felt for a couple months that this child was going to be calm (very unlike me), and perhaps even a bit of a healer.  It’s like I feel like she’s probably a soul who’s picked me just because she knows the calming that I need…and it leaves me feeling very humbled.

In the darkest place, I knew that I had to live for at least another two months so that I could continue to nurture the life growing inside me.  After that, then she’ll need me…but wouldn’t any set of parents do?  I’m wondering now if perhaps it not that she needs me, as much as I need her.

At my most recent midwife appointment (two weeks ago), I weighed in at 175.0lbs.  That’s quite a hefty load for my 5′3″ frame!
 
Yesterday, out of either curiosity or masochism, I measured  to see how wide I actually am at this time:
 
Chest (across bust): 40+
Ribs (below bust): 36+
Waist (what waist?): 36
Belly at widest point: 43
Hips (below belly, across widest point of butt): 46
 
Damn!  I’m a good 10″ wider across the rear end than I should “normally” be!  I KNOW some of that’s water weight, but it can’t ALL be water.  Ouch!
 
Ah well, I know how to eat well.  I know how to create a good workout schedule.  It WILL come off.  Really.

Haircut! I’ve been threatening to go short for a while now. 

30 weeks, 3 days (July 19) 

I had pretty much no swelling whatsoever until Monday, then it was like an instantaneous event…

My “normal” shoes (size 7-1/2) no longer fit. Period.

My “think ahead” sandals I bought months ago (size that used to fall off? Now they’re *just* long enough, and tight.

I no longer have feet. I have sausages. Either that, or I’m closely related to Fred Flintstone. Ankles? What are ankles?

’nuff whining…just wanted to complain to those who might just feel my pain. If swollen feet are my biggest concern, I’m doing very well. One gall on my yahoo group has already had her baby (at 29 weeks!), and another is looking like she won’t be far behind, due to preeclampsia.

Well, since we delayed, it’s actually 28-1/2 weeks Uneventful, for the most part.

I’ve finally started to swell up, as of yesterday, and Merrie wants me to sit in the air-conditioned inside on the sofa, drink water, and watch movies for the day to see if that helps. My blood pressure is still low - 94/60. My pulse, otoh is rather high, even for me (my resting pulse seems to usually be up there) at 114/minute. I’m competing with the baby!

My weight? 175.0 on my 5′3″ frame. Yeah, we’re getting crowded.

Baby’s heartrate was 140s-150s, and nice and strong as usual. I’m measuring 29cm…right on track.

What a yawner of a report-in!

For the first time, I’m fairly certain little one has the hiccups. At first, I was trying to figure out what I was feeling in my lower abdomen (kicks are usually higher, as she’s already upside down) — then a pattern of movement started. These are strong hiccups, and would drive me nuts if they were mine!

The past couple of weeks, I’ve become progressively more uncomfortable, even though my rear end has *stopped* expanding (thank you, hiking and weights). My belly self-measures at about 29-30cm, right on track, and when I hold out the tape measure to see what 40cm looks like…YIKES! Do I really have to do this for another 2-1/2 to 3 months?

Backaches, leg cramps, carpal tunnel syndrome, arms numb in the mornings…ah, joy. Some day, before too very long, I’ll get to move gracefully again, wear normal clothing, hike without panting quite so much, and bend down to pick up a pen without a second thought. Until that time, I can just be glad that every week longer she stays with me…we’re closer to a no-complications-no-interventions birth at home.